The Winter Long Read online

  “Toby.” She said my name gently, and with a deep, centuries-long sorrow. “Who the fuck said I needed you to be afraid of me?” She took another step forward, dropping her voice to a whisper: “Run.”

  I stared at her for a moment before groping behind me until I found Quentin’s hand. I trusted Tybalt to run, but Quentin . . . he was even closer to the Luidaeg than I was. If I was having trouble with this, he was going to be staggered. My fingers closed around his.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  Then I turned and ran, dragging my squire down the hall with me as I fled from the woman who had become one of my staunchest and most trusted allies. I expected to hear things breaking, or worse, the sounds of pursuit, but all that followed us was the unmistakable sound of the Luidaeg sobbing like her heart was broken. It took everything I had to wrench the door open and keep going, rather than turning back to help her.

  The door waited to slam until all three of us were standing in the alley, which was blanketed by a thick fog that should have burned off long since. We stood frozen, staring at each other, until Quentin asked in a small voice, “What happened?”

  “I think . . . I think I found a loophole,” I said. I sounded shell-shocked, like I’d just been through something much worse than a run down a short hallway. “She shouldn’t have been able to answer that last question. She shouldn’t have been able to tell me that it was someone I knew. That’s why she threw us out.”

  “If she violated the geas, however accidentally, there may be consequences,” said Tybalt, dawning horror in his tone. “She was moving us out of the line of fire.”

  “We have to help her,” said Quentin.

  “Yeah, we do, and that means finding a way back into the line of fire. We need to know more about what we’re dealing with here.” I turned and started walking toward the car, digging my phone out of my pocket as I went. Much as I hated cell phones, they had their uses. The name I needed was halfway down my contact list.

  It was the middle of the day, an hour when all good fae were snug in their beds like happy little monsters. My call went straight to voicemail. I hung up and called again. It went to voicemail again. I hung up and called a third time. We had reached the car by then; I unlocked the doors and peered into the backseat while I waited for an answer.

  This time, I got it. “Hello?” Li Qin sounded groggy and half-aware, which made sense, given that I’d probably just hauled her out of a sound sleep.

  “Li Qin, hi. I need a Library pass.”

  “Toby?” The grogginess faded, replaced by confusion. “Titania’s teeth, Toby, it’s barely past noon. What’s going on?”

  January had been Sylvester’s niece before she was Li Qin’s wife. Trusting that this meant I didn’t need to explain the whole tangled history of the Torquills to her, I said, “Simon’s back.”

  Li Qin gasped, all signs of bleariness vanishing from her voice. “What? Where? Is Sylvester all right? Do you need me?”

  “No, although it would probably be best if you could check in on April. I’m not sure Simon knows about her, and I’d like to keep it that way.” The backseat was clear. I got into the car. Tybalt and Quentin did the same, both of them watching me curiously. “Look, it’s a long story, and I don’t think this is the time to try explaining it, but I really need access to the Library right now. The Luidaeg can’t help us, and I need answers.”

  “Right—of course. I’ll wake Mags up. I’m sure she’ll be fine with you coming over again. She liked you well enough last time you went to visit, and you didn’t burn the Library down, which she appreciates.” Li Qin hesitated before offering, “I can twist your luck . . .”

  “I don’t know if I’m ready to go that far just yet. I’ll let you know.” Every type of fae has its own gifts. Li Qin could manipulate probability, allowing her to arrange for great coincidences. The trouble was, the scales had to be balanced. The last time I’d allowed her to bend my luck, I had wound up disemboweled. Twice. That didn’t mean I wouldn’t take the help if it came down to it. It just meant that I had no desire to become reacquainted with my liver.

  “Okay. Just . . . be careful, all right? Simon is a very complicated man.”

  “He turned me into a fish once.”

  “Yes. Complicated. The Library is still in the same general area, I believe; is Quentin with you?”

  I glanced over my shoulder. “He’s here.”

  “I’ll text him with directions. You shouldn’t text and drive.”

  I rolled my eyes as I twisted back into my original position. “Okay, wow. Way to slide in a ‘safe driving’ PSA when I’m about to risk my life doing stupid shit.”

  “There are some stupid things you don’t have to do,” said Li Qin primly. “Open roads.”

  “Kind fires,” I said automatically. Hanging up my phone, I tucked it back into my pocket before starting the engine. “Li Qin’s going to check in with Mags and then text Quentin with the current location of the Library.” Mags was the current Librarian. She could grant and deny access. Even Arden didn’t have that power.

  “Much as I enjoy the dizzying whirl of your utter lack of planning, might you explain why we’re going to the Library of Stars?” asked Tybalt. He didn’t sound annoyed; just baffled, like he was sure there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for my behavior that he simply hadn’t figured out yet.

  “There can’t be that many people I know who are powerful enough to bind the Luidaeg and were here when Luna and Rayseline disappeared. There are even fewer who would scare her like that,” I said, driving slowly as I moved through the fog. “If we check the Kingdom histories for around that time, maybe we can find the points of intersection, and figure out what the pieces are that we’re missing. And if nothing else, at least we know that Simon won’t be able to come after us there. We can regroup.”

  “Charming,” sighed Tybalt. “Ah, well. At least it’s a plan, rather than a knee-jerk reaction to a previously unknown threat. That’s an encouraging change in your usual mode of operation.”

  “Jerk,” I accused.

  “Yes,” he said mildly. “But your jerk, which I think buys me a certain measure of leniency.”

  My reply was cut off by the sound of Quentin’s phone chiming. “I’ve got the address,” he said. “We’re cleared to enter the Library.”

  “Great,” I said, and hit the gas. It was time to get some answers. If the Luidaeg couldn’t help us, we were going to have to help ourselves. And maybe then, we could help her.

  EIGHT

  FOLLOWING THE DIRECTIONS on Quentin’s phone brought us to the Library of Stars in less than twenty minutes, mostly via side streets and alleys where there was no traffic, but where a single trash bin could make the road too narrow for us to continue until somebody got out and moved it. We probably traveled about three miles all told, moving deeper into the heart of the city with every turn we took.

  Fae Libraries—capital letter intentional—are strange things, both like and unlike their mortal equivalents. You can’t just walk in and request a Library card; unless you’ve been invited by the current Librarian, you can’t walk in at all. All Libraries are constructed in shallowings, space scooped out in the thin membrane between the Summerlands and the mortal world. The doors are hard to find and constantly moving, thanks to the enchantments built into the walls. The only way to get inside is to have a Library card, or to get one of the Librarians to give you permission. Prior to meeting Li Qin and being introduced to Mags, I had never seen a Library. Now, it seemed we couldn’t go six months without my paying a visit.

  Last time we’d dropped by, the Library had been concealed behind a secondhand bookstore that had looked like it was on the verge of crumbling into utter disrepair. Despite the fact that the new set of directions had taken us into a completely different neighborhood, we found ourselves in front of that same filthy, rundown bookstore when we pul
led up at the address that Mags had provided. Even the doorway had moved, bringing with it a wealth of splinters and ancient spiderwebs.

  “Huh,” I said, getting out of the car. Tybalt and Quentin followed. “Anybody want to bet that none of the neighbors have noticed this place?”

  “I do not take what you call ‘sucker bets,’” said Tybalt, wrinkling his nose at the condition of the store window. “I do, however, feel the distinct need to put on gloves before I touch anything.”

  I paused with my hand on the doorknob, looking back at him. “I don’t remember you being this concerned with the condition of the place the last time we were here.”

  “You had just been exiled the last time we came to the Library,” he said, in a reasonable tone. “I am taking this situation very seriously, and yet for once, we are not in such a state of immediate crisis that I am unable to appreciate the little things.”

  “We’re in enough crisis for me,” I muttered, and opened the door.

  The inside of the bookstore was no better than the outside. A thick layer of dust mixed with glittering pixie-sweat covered every surface, rendering the spines of the books that were stacked in haphazard piles virtually unreadable. Not that I could imagine anyone wanting to read most of them; they were all in that awkward window between “new” and “vintage” where they didn’t really hold any appeal for anyone. A mortal bibliophile might have squawked at the condition they were in, but since no human was ever likely to set foot in this store, that didn’t really matter.

  We picked our way between the stacks, all of us going quiet as we concentrated on not knocking anything over. Fae can see in low light, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy, and a little care was required to reach the faintly shimmering doorway on the far wall. It would have been entirely invisible to mortal eyes. I knew that for a fact; I’d been virtually human the last time I’d been here, thanks to a bad combination of goblin fruit and my own powers. I’d only been able to use the door because Tybalt had picked me up and carried me through.

  Well, I was standing on my own two feet now. I took a deep breath and stepped through, crossing from the mortal world into the Library of Stars. There was a brief, dizzying dip, and then I was standing on the clean hardwood floor of the Library, surrounded by tall shelves on all sides. I stepped out of the way, letting Tybalt and Quentin follow me through.

  We were still in a confined space surrounded by books, and the faint haze of pixie-sweat still hung suspended in the air, adding a golden sheen to everything it touched, but that was where the similarities between the bookstore and the Library ended. The bookstore smelled like mold and dust and decaying paper, just one step short of despair—and not a long step, either. The Library smelled like knowledge, that strange alchemical mix that only came from combining old books, leather bindings, and care. Lots and lots of care.

  The source of that care was hurrying toward us, if the sound of footsteps was any indication. I turned to see Magdaleana Brooke—Mags to her friends, and to anyone who had trouble pronouncing that many vowels—come trotting around the end of a nearby shelf. Her wings were half-spread, leaving yet another overlay of pixie-sweat on the air behind her. “You’re here!” she said, sounding almost surprised. Her archaic British accent made her sound like Wendy by way of Tinker Bell, which went well with the rest of her: short, blue-eyed, and red-haired, with a fondness for the long skirts and sensible shoes that suited her chosen profession.

  “We are,” I said. I hesitated. “You did text Quentin the address, right . . . ?”

  “Yes, of course, after Li Qin called, but I didn’t expect you to get here so fast.”

  “We were virtually in the neighborhood,” I said. “I’m sorry we had her wake you up, but it’s an emergency, and we needed to get started researching as soon as possible.”

  “You didn’t wake me, actually,” said Mags. Her wings gave a nervous twitch, spraying glitter over everything within three feet of her. “I was already up.”

  I blinked. “Really? I thought Puca were nocturnal.” Mags’ type of fae, the Puca, are almost extinct in the modern world. It wasn’t difficult to believe that I might have missed a few things about them.

  She shook her head. “We are, normally, but the Library is open whenever a patron requires the use of it, and as Librarian, I have to be on the premises to supervise. Li Qin isn’t the only person in this Kingdom with a Library card, you know.”

  “She’s the only one I’ve ever met,” I said.

  “That you know of,” Mags politely corrected. “You still owe me a history of your mother, you know. You agreed to that the last time you were here.”

  “I know. I’ve been busy.” I hadn’t been, not really; I just hadn’t wanted to come back to the Library. Books have never been my thing, and Mags’ strange, bright eyes seemed a little too intense when she asked me about Amandine. I would pay my debt to her. Probably faster now that she’d reminded me of it. That didn’t mean that I was ever going to be comfortable among the high-stacked shelves of her domain.

  “Luckily for you, I’m relatively patient.” She looked from me to Quentin, and finally to Tybalt. “I do have to remind you, however, that the rules of the Library apply to everyone who walks in here, regardless of their race or title. There is no fighting in the Library. Anyone who starts a fight or responds to a challenge will be thrown out. You may think you can take me. You’re probably right. But none of you can take the Library. Now come along, this way.” She turned and started off into the stacks.

  I glanced at Quentin and Tybalt, who looked as confused as I felt. “Any idea what that was all about?” I asked.

  “Maybe she thinks you and Tybalt are getting ready to break up?” said Quentin hesitantly.

  Tybalt snorted rather than dignifying that with a verbal response. I grinned a little and followed the trail of pixie dust that Mags had left hanging behind herself in the air. It only remained distinct enough to track for a few minutes, but that was more than long enough to lead us through the stacks to the wide open space that served both as a sort of “living room” for Mags and as a central study area for the people who were using the Library. I could hear her voice as we drew closer, quietly scolding someone.

  “I guess she told us about fighting because whoever got her out of bed is still here,” I said, and stepped around the edge of the last stack, moving out into the open.

  Mags turned when she heard my sharply indrawn breath, which was followed by the sound of Tybalt’s low, almost subsonic growl. Of the three of us, only Quentin was completely silent. He had gone statuary still. I glanced at him, and saw that his hand was at his belt, resting on the pommel of his sword. His lips were thin and tight with rage.

  Simon Torquill looked up from the book he’d been studying, but he didn’t otherwise move. That was probably the safest choice he could have made. As long as he was seated on the Library’s antique, overstuffed couch, he was about as far from looking like a threat as it was possible for him to be. If he so much as wiggled his fingers in a way I didn’t like, I was going to break all the rules against fighting in the Library.

  “What is he doing here?” I intended my words to come out as a demand, angry and strident and powerful. Instead, they were a squeak, and I probably wouldn’t have been able to hear myself if I’d been standing where Mags was.

  Either she could read lips or she knew what I was likely to be saying, because she sighed, starting across the floor to the three of us. As she drew closer, she said, “Remember, there is no fighting in the Library. Simon Torquill has a Library card. He hasn’t done anything that would cause me to rescind it.”

  I stared at her. “He turned me into a fish.”

  “Did he do it in the Library?” Mags shook her head, not waiting for me to reply. “I don’t make judgments about the character of the people who come here. This is a neutral place, and for it to remain so, the rules have to apply equally to
everyone, with no consideration for what they may have done outside these walls. Consider your own history. You’ve killed a Firstborn and overthrown a Queen. Against your record, turning someone into a fish is positively friendly.”

  I stared at her. Tybalt’s hand on my shoulder saved me from doing anything I might have regretted later. As in “immediately,” since we still needed access to the books.

  “Even so, given their history, it would have been considerate to warn us,” said Tybalt.

  Mags frowned at him. “This is my Library,” she said, in a colder tone than I had ever heard her use before. “You are guests here, using someone else’s card as a pledge against your good behavior. Simon Torquill has his own Library card, and has been a patron for over a century. Exactly why should I be warning you? If anything, I should have refused you entry until he said he was done. Be glad that I’m more charitable than you appear to be.”

  I took a deep breath, trying to force my nerves to stop sounding danger bells in my head. When I was sure that I could speak civilly, I said, “We really do appreciate you letting us come here. The rule about no fighting in the Library . . . does it apply to everyone? I mean, is he going to attack me if I get too close to him?”

  “Not unless he wants to be reminded that the Libraries are more than capable of protecting themselves when they have to,” said Mags. She shook her head. “If you can’t be civil, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I’m sorry. Rules are rules.”

  “As long as he doesn’t start anything, I can behave myself,” I said, looking past her to Simon. He was still sitting on the couch; it didn’t look like he had moved an inch since we walked in. I couldn’t tell if that was arrogance—showing how little of a threat he considered us all to be—or if he was actually being considerate.

  Fighting was forbidden inside the Library. For the first time, it occurred to me that this was something I could use to my advantage.